Bill Clinton thinks the idea of illegal aliens being granted driver's licenses is a "trivial matter," and Barack Obama finds it stunning:

The former president had encouraged an audience in Nevada Monday not to let "trivial matters" take away the election from the Democrats as they have in the past. He cited the television ads during the 2004 presidential campaign that questioned Kerry's patriotism and campaign commercials in 2002 suggesting that Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga. was soft on terrorism.

Both Kerry and Cleland won medals for their service in Vietnam, during which Kerry commanded a Navy "swift boat" and Cleland lost three limbs. Both were defeated after the ads aired.

"I was pretty stunned by that statement," Obama said with a chuckle when asked about the former president's comment in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

He said that when debating last week whether illegal immigrants should be given driver's licenses, Hillary Rodham Clinton "seemed to contradict what she said previously."

Both Obama and John Edwards have criticized her repeatedly on that score, but Obama said in the interview: "How you would then draw an analogy to distorting somebody's military record is a reach."

Sen. Chris Dodd, another candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, called the Clintons' response to the debate "outrageous."

"To have the former president come out and suggest this is a form of swiftboating ... is way over the top in my view," Dodd said in a telephone interview.

"If elected to the presidency, there will be a lot of tough questions and if you can't handle it in a debate without accusing everybody who has an issue with you of piling on or a sexist attack, somehow, first of all that's unwise and, secondly, it's false," Dodd said.